


Midnight Snack

by monicawoe



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Agender Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Gen, Hungry Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Other, POV Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Tired Eddie Brock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 05:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18564865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monicawoe/pseuds/monicawoe
Summary: Eight hours is way too long to wait until breakfast. Venom makes snacks while Eddie is sleeping. Unfortunately the toaster gives them some issues.





	Midnight Snack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tisfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/gifts).



> for tisfan who prompted: "Venom is that annoying neighbor who can't figure out how to work the toaster"

“Mmhr?” Eddie muttered, as he woke up. Something—someone—was slapping his cheek. “Wha?”

**“Hungry.”**

Eddie looked at his alarm clock, sighed, and rolled over, shoving half his face back down into the pillow. “No.”

**“But—“**

“It’s three. Eat in the morning.”

**“We cannot wait until morning.”** Venom ran two of their slender finger-like tendrils across Eddie’s chin. **“It is too many hours.”**

“No it isn’t. It’s like four hours. Please just let me sleep.”

**“You can sleep while we eat.”**

“Great. Then let me sleep, and you can do what you want,” Eddie mumbled, and turned further into the pillow. He fell back into even, snore-riddled breathing within seconds, a testament to his professed exhaustion. 

Venom listened to Eddie snore for a few more seconds, decided he was asleep enough to stay that way, and then gently encased his body. They might not need Eddie to be awake to eat, but they needed to utilize his body to form a connection from mouth to digestive tracts. Carefully, they swung their legs around and stood, satisfied by the sound of Eddie’s continued snoring, now coming from inside, that they wouldn’t wake him. 

Using six tendrils, Venom simultaneously opened the refrigerator and the cabinets that sometimes held food. There wasn’t much, there never was. A half-bag of tater tots, a box of frostbitten waffles, a half gallon of milk, some leftover Chinese food, and a loaf of sliced bread. 

_Toast_ , Venom remembered, drool welling up as they recalled the taste of the warm buttery toast they’d had at a diner last weekend. **“Yes, toast.”**

Eddie had a toaster. He’d used it to make waffles for them. Venom opened the bag of bread and eyed the toaster. The toaster only had two slots, but they were confident that they could fit several pieces. The slices themselves were very soft and squishy. 

Gently, Venom pushed two slices in the left slot of the toaster, then did the same on the right side, then added another slice to each slot, since there was still plenty of room—with space enough to add a sizable hunk of butter to each slot. Last weekend, Eddie had made waffles, and adjusted the dial to make sure the waffles would toast thoroughly, so, mimicking the motion, Venom turned the dial all the way to the right, to maximum toast, and pushed the lever down. 

After a few moments, the toaster started to give off a wonderful smell. Venom drooled more, but kept it off of the counter by wiping it away with the back of their hand, like Eddie has taught them. The toaster started to smell different, more like burning, more like— 

Smoke spewed out of the toaster and with a spark from the cord, the smoke turned to fire. Venom jumped back with a shriek as the smoke grew thicker. They’d messed up something,  Eddie would be—

A horrible, painfully loud beeping cut through their thoughts. Venom whipped their head around frantically, seeking the origin of the sound, peeling away from Eddie, as he woke up in a total panic. “What’s happening?” Eddie said, his head bursting out of Venom’s chest as Venom struggled not to recoil fully from the sound. “Fire!” Eddie gasped, looking up, and there—making that horrible sound—was a small white disc pinned to the ceiling. Venom, despite the pain wracking through them, shot out a tendril and wrenched the horrid thing off of the ceiling, flinging it against the wall for good measure. It shattered and the dreaded beeping stopped.

Eddie yanked the toaster’s cord out of the wall, coughing, and fanned his hands in front of the toaster as Venom retracted more, looking sheepishly at Eddie as he asked, “What’d you do?”

**“We made toast.”**

“No, you killed the toaster.” Eddie carried the still-smoking toaster to the sink and tipped it over, shaking it. The smoke dissipated, but nothing came out of the slots. He turned it back over and studied it more closely. “Holy—how many slices did you put in here?”

**“Ten. We were hungry.”**

“Yeah, well now there’s no toast. You happy?”

**“No,”** Venom said, miserably. **“We did not get to eat any.”**

“Well since I’m up, and won’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon, let’s just make something else.” He looked at the last two slices of bread and with a nudge at Venom, used a tentacle to open the fridge. “Peanut butter?”

Venom shuddered. **“That makes our mouth stick together.”**

“Then you’re getting plain bread. We don’t have anything else to put on it.” Eddie held out the two slices of bread, and waited for Venom’s mouth to reform around his own. Their tongue curled around the toast and yanked it down into their gullet in a fraction of a second. 

**“Still hungry.”**

“Don’t have much.” Eddie shrugged and stifled a yawn. “Waffles? Oh wait we can’t cook those either, because you murdered the toaster.” Eddie headed back for the bed.

**“Sorry, Eddie.”**

“Can you just, let me sleep for like two more hours and then we’ll go to the diner and get pancakes?”

**“Yes.”** Venom didn’t want to wait that long. It was so boring when Eddie slept. At least they had the Internet to look at. Maybe they could learn how to cook other things. Or they could watch more videos of people hurting themselves. Those were funny. 

#

The next morning, on the way back home from the diner, Eddie stopped by Mrs. Chen’s to pick up a new smoke alarm. She carried stuff like that. Things people tended to need, spur of the moment. 

“So next time, when the alarm goes off, what do you do?” Mrs. Chen asked.

“ **Push the silent button** ,” Venom said, quietly. She’d explained it no less than five times.

“That’s right,” she smiled at them. “I love repeat customers, but these are not disposable, okay?”

“ **Okay**.”

“Thanks, Mrs. C,” Eddie said, grabbing his change and the plastic bag holding the alarm and loaf of bread. As they headed out the door, he added, to Venom, “we’ll drop this off at home and then go get some grub.”

“ **Lo mein**?”

“Sounds good.”

#

Two hours after dinner, Venom was hungry again. While Eddie worked on his latest article, Venom grabbed the loaf of bread and set it subtly next to Eddie, partially on his computer keyboard. "Really? We just had like, three pounds of noodles."

**"Just a few slices of toast."**

"We don't have a toaster anymore," Eddie said, sounding annoyed. "Remember?" He opened the bag and pulled a few slices out, setting them on the table. "You're gonna have to eat it cold.”

Venom sulked as they shoved three slices in their mouth. The bread didn't taste nearly as good untoasted. It was spongelike and nearly flavorless. They looked mournfully at the spot where the toaster used to sit. The poorly-designed toaster that had gone up in flames after malfunctioning so horridly. " **Eddie?** "

"What?"

**"Can we buy a new toaster?"**

"Yeah...we gotta, I guess. Just gonna wait until the weekend. I want to get a decent one."

**"So..."** Venom mulled that over for a moment. **"...no toast until the weekend?"**

"Nope." Eddie began typing more intently, clearly considering the conversation over.

Venom looked at the stove and the door of the oven, pondering. Eddie had explained what it was, but never actually used it. They’d seen people use ovens on cooking shows though. There were a lot of cooking shows on television that they liked to watch while Eddie was sleeping. And at least one of those shows had involved baking bread in an oven.

#

Venom waited until Eddie was fast asleep, and tested a few gentle movements out first to make sure he’d stay that way before enveloping him fully.

They stood and headed for the oven, turning it up to 375 degrees. That was a number people used a lot on the cooking shows. 

The bag with the remaining bread slices was still on the counter. Venom eyed it, and after considering for a moment, put the whole bag in the oven. They didn’t have aluminum foil, or a baking sheet like they used on the cooking shows, but surely plastic was just as good. They did _not_ put butter in with the bread. Eddie had been particularly annoyed when he’d discovered the burnt butter in the toaster. And then he’d explained about butter going on toast _after_ it was hot. 

Venom leaned down to look in the oven, but it barely felt warm yet. Frustrated, they opened Eddie’s laptop and went to YouTube to watch more videos of people falling down and parrots talking.

The oven didn’t start doing anything for a long time. And then when it did, it started to stink. A lot. Like the toaster had. Venom approached the oven cautiously, but couldn’t see inside well through the little cloudy window. So they opened the oven door.

Black smoke poured out, immediately stinging their eyes and making them cough. The smoke alarm made one shrill beep before Venom remembered where the silence button was and shot a tendril out to silence it. It worked, and they were quite pleased with themselves. Except that smoke was still pouring from the oven, and the bread looked—less delicious. The plastic bag had wrinkled and charred black and grey and looked grafted onto the loaf itself. Venom reached in to grab it and let out a yelp at how hot the thing was.

Eddie stayed asleep, luckily, Venom had made sure to block his ears thoroughly.

But the oven was still spewing out smoke. They turned it off and hoped that would do the trick, but the smoke just spread across the apartment, settling as a thick, dark grey fog. Eddie would see it when he woke up and be angry. Maybe they’d need a new oven now, too. 

Upset with themselves, and still hungry, Venom looked around frantically for a solution and then saw the window. Eddie burnt the tater tots often, and he always cracked the window when he did. So, Venom used their tendrils to fling open two windows. And it worked! The smoke began wafting outside immediately, and the air in the apartment slowly started to clear.

Venom was so proud, they nearly patted themselves on the shoulder. But they still had to dispose of the charred bread loaf. With one tendril, they poked at the bread. It had cooled off enough that picking it up was easy. If they threw it in the trash, Eddie would see it, so that wasn’t an option. Plus, they were still very hungry, and surely the inside of the bread wasn’t as bad as the outside.

So, left with only one option, Venom opened their mouth wide and swallowed the loaf whole. It did taste intensely burnt, but left them slightly more sated. They burped once, spitting out a small cloud of ash. Sirens passed by outside, not atypical for the city, but Eddie was still protected from the sound, ears muffled by Venom. They should get back into the bed now, quickly, before Eddie woke up and got suspicious. 

Carefully, Venom climbed back onto the mattress, settling onto the pillow before peeling back from Eddie’s head and body. But before they’d finished completely, there was a loud banging—somebody pounding on the door.

Eddie bolted awake, panicked enough that he reached for Venom, who instinctively encased him again. The door rattled and then flew open with a kick from a fireman, who stood there holding an axe, staring at Eddie. “Sir, are you all right?” He came in, lowering his axe, with another fireman behind him.

“Uh…” Eddie blinked at him, and Venom sunk back into his skin, as surreptitiously as possible. 

The firemen went further inside the apartment, before Eddie could get more words out and headed straight for the oven. “Were you baking?” one asked.

“No, I—“ Venom cut Eddie off, trying their best to keep their voice close to Eddie’s “— **yes** ,” Eddie coughed, like he was clearing his throat, “— **we baked bread**.” 

“We? There’s somebody else here?” asked the other fireman, scanning the room.

“No,” Eddie said climbing out of bed.

“What were you baking?” 

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Eddie muttered.

The fireman by Eddie narrowed his eyes, “You don’t know what you were baking?”

The other, inspecting the oven called out. “Plastic remnants in here. That’s why the smoke was so dark.”

“Sir, please don’t put plastic in your oven.”

Eddie glared down at himself, and Venom could feel his eyes on them, reprimanding, even though they were hidden deep inside of Eddie. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“You should go to the doctor, have them check you for smoke inhalation.”

“Well apparently...I opened the windows,” Eddie gestured at the billowing curtains.

“Go anyway.”

“Yes, sir.” Eddie sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “I’m really sorry about wasting your time.”

“Neighbor called it in. Just doing our job,” the fireman said, following his cohort out to the hall. “Sorry about your door.” He pulled it shut behind him, but it wouldn’t latch anymore, the doorknob dislodged where it had been kicked in.

Eddie stood there, in silence for a few seconds, before saying, quietly, “Now we have to replace our door, too.”

“ **Sorry, Eddie** ,” Venom said, and they truly were sorry. Eddie didn’t even sound angry, just resigned. “Are you mad?”

Eddie sighed again. “We don’t have enough money for us to keep replacing shit, you get that right?”

**“Yes. Won’t try to toast or bake anymore, Eddie. Will wait for you.”**

“I also get that you’re hungry all the time, so we gotta work on that. Get something you can eat that won’t burn the house down. I’ll be better about stocking up. It’s just—food costs money too, you know?”

**“Eddie?”**

“Yeah?”

**“Bank robbers are bad people, right?”**

“Yes.”

**“If we eat them, and take their money—“**

“No.”

**“But then we’d have food. And money.”**

“No.”

**“But—“**

“It’s not their money.”

**“It’s not?”**

“No! They took it from other people.”

Venom fell silent, confused. **“Then how do we get more money?”**

“By finding more work.” Eddie pulled on a pair of pants over his boxer-briefs. “And we can save money by teaching you how to cook without setting things on fire."

**"Yes."** Venom was pleased by this idea. **"We will master the toaster _and_ the oven." **

"Great. But first I need to get some coffee so I can think.”

Venom waited until they were outside, before asking, **“Coffee...and toast?”**

Eddie sighed, but he couldn’t hide his fondness, reached out and stroked Venom where they’d formed a tendril, circling around his wrist. “Yes, and toast.”


End file.
